The Year of Living Thirty-ishly...

Summer, 1979, age approx. 18 mos. Oh how I wish I still had that colour of hair

It starts today.

So what's the recipe for a good 30th birthday? Well, here's a start;

Take 1 day off of work: check
Sleep in until 9 am: check
Wake up and allow dog to relieve himself out of doors: check
Make coffee and in process, spill yesterdays filter of coffee grounds on floor: check
Realize you used up all of the paper towels and fast food napkins cleaning up dog piss on the carpet last night: check
Lock up dog and go into as yet unfinished house to retrieve more paper towels: check
While there, hunt down old photo albums for blog purposes: check
Flip through said albums and realize that an astonishing number of the relatives in those photos are now dead: check

That's as far as I've gotten. I also got a nice phone call from my ma, and we both marvelled at the fact that I'm 30. In a good way.

30 on the 30th...that makes this my champagne birthday, or my golden year, whichever you want to call it. I've been thinking a lot about that number, ever since the end of the holidays, which has always meant to me that my birthday is just around the corner. I've been rolling the number around in my mind, 30...thirty...thir--tee.

The number itself does not bother me. I like being 'grown up', a term I am using very loosely. As I've said many times to many people, I'd much rather be turning 30 than 18 again. There isn't enough money in the world to make me want to go back there. And while I've spent a great deal of time contemplating what this whole milestone means, and what I would potentially write about it, whether it be a mere subtle acknowledgement or a long navel-gazing diatribe, I've managed to condense it down to the following:

--I really like who I am now and care less and less every year what other people think. If I want to go to the grocery store wearing my tattered jogging pants, I will. Don't care.

--Pretty much all of my dreams up to this point have come true. I'm married to the best guy I've ever known who makes me laugh every day and seems to get more handsome with each passing year. We own our very own home, (it's not done, but we do own it!), something I never would have thought possible this early, and we have absolutely everything we need. Really, we want for nothing. I live near the water and the beaches, like I did when I was a kid, and longed for when I was away from it.

--I'm probably in the best health I've been since I was a pre-teen, in that I'm no longer actively seeking to self destruct. All those years of smoking, ya know. Kinda zaps the energy out of the 20's.

So all around, 30 is looking and feeling pretty good. I'm excited about what comes next. Now that I've checked off some of those dreams, it's time to dream up some new ones. Even if it takes another 30 years to call them into being, that's okay. I'd like to do everything, frankly! If only just to try.

For now, I'm dreaming of the day when Hank stops having little accidents in the house. Or other peoples houses. When does this stop exactly?

Until later...